Tuesday, January 03, 2017

No Straw Man Arguements Johnnie

This is what passes for Republican / Conservative Arguments now. It shows both a disregard for the truth, and a distortion of what half-truths are found (link).

The "Smart Set" here appears to be anyone who disagrees with Johnie.

Johnie goes on to describe what "the smart set" are judging. He is wrong.

"For example", he states, "it is presumed disqualifying to be associated with religious worship..." On the contrary. One MUST be associated with religious worship in order to be elected to anything in this country.

What is being questioned is the idea that (some) religious leaders have taken to lauding a adulterous, money worshiper-er who cannot turn the other cheek nor follow the word of Jesus - which they proclaim to uphold.

Johnie goes on regarding what the "smart set" is poking fun at, "... hydrocarbon economics". Again, this is asinine. Under Obama energy growth in hydrocarbons has grown to it's largest base ever. But it is only part of a economic plan. And coal energy is not a long term strategy anymore - for economic if not environmental reasons.

But Johnie isn't done with his own ad hominem attacks on the "smart set". "..Wall Street prosperity" comes in for attack next for no reason what's so ever. Americans and the media - smart or stupid set - LOVE Wall Street Prosperity. Find where they don't.

And finally "smaller government" is something that is called out as being attacked. Well, small for small's sake is dumb. The government should be smarter - if that happens to be smaller, great. Under President Obama, the federal workforce has fallen for 5 straight years (which makes President Trump's "hiring freeze" rather stupid - but that is another story).

The "smart set" does poke fun of some of the President's Cabinet appointments - in particular putting as the heads of Departments people that can't remember the name of the Department - or putting in heads that released statements a week earlier saying they were unqualified. But you can't blame the "smart set" for that.

No - Evidence of this is the May 2016 Op-ed he wrote for the National Review where he states that the "global warming has inspired one of the major policy debates of
our time. That debate is far from settled. Scientists continue to
disagree about the degree and extent of global warming and its
connection to the actions of mankind."

The education secretary nominee, Betsy DeVos, is defamed
as a plutocrat who aims to dismantle America’s public school system
while permitting ignorance, poverty, segregation, and superstitious cant
to flourish in charter schools.

Proof of this denunciation is that DeVos and
her husband, Rick DeVos, are well-to-do Calvinist-Christian
philanthropists who support charter schools in Michigan—and that DeVos
once remarked that “it is critically important that we have believers involved in public life.”

No - Proof is that the Michgan experiment is a gigantic failure. Charters schools as implemented there have failed to perform. However I, and most, are more that willing to give Mrs. DeVos a chance to fix those mistakes.

The nominee for the Department of Energy, Rick Perry, three times governor of Texas, is portrayed as a “brain-frozen”
jackanape who, during a 2012 presidential debate, forgot on stage that
energy was one of the cabinet posts he proposed to demote as president.
The governor’s current sin is that he will soon be in a position to
execute his promised ambition.

No - the problem is that he doesn't know what the Department of Energy does. In addition to what the name says it also handles nuclear weapons storage and nuclear waste disposal - something we cannot eliminate.